Kelly Barnhill Quotes

Yet was a powerful word, Ned decided. Very powerful indeed.

How many feelings can one heart hold?... Infinite, Luna thought. The way the universe is infinite. It is light and dark and endless motion; it is space and time, and space within space, and time within time. And she knew: there is no limit to what the heart can carry.

The more he learned, the more he knew what more there was to learn. There were deep pools of knowledge in dusty volumes quietly shelved in libraries, and Antain thirsted for all of them

In every breeze exhales the promise of spring,
Each sleeping tree
dreams green dreams;
the barren mountain
wakes in blossom.

Human babies are only tiny for an instant - their growing up is as swift as the beat of a hummingbird's wing.

Each mortal beast must find it's Ground-
be it forrest or fen or field or fire.

All stories are lies until someone believes in them.

But as the years passed, Ned's silence grew and grew. It pressed upon his face and his body. It leaked into the house and spread outward into the yard. His silence had weight. It had substance and presence and teeth.

Hope and light and motion, her soul whispered. Hope and formation and fusion, Hope and heat and accretion. The miracle of gravity. The miracle of transformation. Each precious thing is destroyed and each precious thing is saved. Hope, hope, hope.

And the things that they did not speak of began to outweigh the thing that they did. Each secret, each unspoken thing was round and hard and heavy and cold, like a stone hung around the necks of both grandmother and girl. Their backs bent under the weight of secrets.

But as she continued and finished her tale, I could tell that her heart was elsewhere, and when she excused herself to go to bed, she left without saying good night. After that, the princesses in her stories were always beautiful. Always.

Lost, yes, but there was a freedom in being lost. There was a freedom in abandonment too, if you thought about it right.

Luna's magic was infused in every bone, every tissue, every cell. Her mother's magic was more like a jumble of trinkets left in a basket after a long journey - bits and pieces knocking together. Still, Luna could feel her mother's magic - as well as her mother's longing and love - buzzing against her skin. It emboldened the power surging inside her, directing the swells of magic. Luna held her mother's hand a little bit tighter.

She needs to be educated. She needs to know the contents of those books, there. She needs to understand the movements of the stars and the origins of the universe and the requirements of kindness. She needs to know mathematics and poetry. She must ask questions. She must seek to understand. She must understand the laws of cause and effect and unintended consequences. She must learn compassion and curiosity and awe. All of these things. We have to instruct her, Glerk. All three of us. It is a great responsibility." The

I love you, Grandmama."
"I know, darling," Xan wheezed. "I love . . ."
And she drifted away, loving everything.

It's all the same. Don't you see? The Beast, the Bog, the Poem, the Poet, the world. They all love you. They've loved you this whole time.

The heart is built of starlight
And time.
A pinprick of longing lost in the dark.
An unbroken chord linking the Infinite to the Infinite.
My heart wishes upon your heart and the wish is granted.
Meanwhile the world spins.
Meanwhile the universe expands.
Meanwhile the mystery of love reveals itself,
again and again, in the mystery of you.
I have gone.
I will return.
Glerk

Failure was not an indication of perpetual failure - no! Instead, it was another step along the creative process: we make; we discard. By discarding, I could make again. I could do what I needed to do: write the next book. Write the right book.

Knowledge is power, but it is a terrible power when it is hoarded and hidden.

It was wrong not to be curious, it was wrong not to wonder.

And the more they asked, the more they wondered. And the more they wondered, the more they hoped. And the more they hoped, the more the clouds of sorrow lifted, drifted, and burned away in the heat of a brightening sky.

There's no such thing as complete when it comes to stories. Stories are infinite. They are as infinite as worlds.

Sorrow is dangerous.

When you apologize, however, you may begin healing yourself. It is not for us. It is for you. I recommend it.

Not all knowledge comes from the mind. Your body, your heart, your intuition. Sometimes memories even have minds of their own.

A word is a magic thing. It holds the essence of an object or idea and pins it to the world. A word can set a universe in motion.

Once upon a time, something terrifying lived in the woods. Or perhaps the woods were terrifying. Or perhaps the whole world is poisoned with wickedness and lies, and it's best to learn that now.
No, Fyrian, darling. I don't believe that last bit either.

A story can tell the truth...but a story can also lie. Stories can bend and twist and obfuscate. Controlling stories is power indeed. And who could benefit most from such a power?

Love transforms our fragile, cowardly hearts into hearts of stone, hearts of blade, hearts of hardest iron. Because love makes heroes of us all.

She lives, she knows, in a village of idiots situated at the edge of a nation of morons. There are worse things, of course.
Though, in truth, not many.

I dream of a garden overripe and wild. Of a woman gathering the sea into her hands and letting it fall in many colored petals to a green, green earth. I dream of words on a page transforming to birds, and birds transforming to children, and children transforming to stars.

Stories have a tendency to seep across the shining membrane walls separating the universes. They whisper and flutter like the feathers of birds, from island to mainland and back again. They fall into dreams like rain.

A person's soul is bigger than his body. It takes root and lives in all who love him.

But then you were enmagicked. I didn't mean to, darling; it was an accident, but it couldn't be undone. And I loved you. I loved you so much. And that couldn't be undone either.

Death is always sudden," Glerk said. His eyes had begun to itch. "Even when it isn't.

Death is always sudden, even when it isn't

It's all right,' she said. Her throat hurt. Her chest hurt. Love hurt. So why was she happy? 'The world is good. Go see it.'

And the bird leaped into the sky and flew away.

That's the magic of revisions – every cut is necessary, and every cut hurts, but something new always grows.

The stars cut into the inky black sky, like glinting shards of glass.

My love isn't divided," she said. "It is multiplied.